Computers can’t read continuous signals. Instead they need digits, blocks of information which they can process.

Sound wave vibrations in the air are continuous streams of information. Therefore, for computers to be able to understand sound wave information they need to convert this continuous signal into blocks of information which they can process.

They do this by taking a snapshots of the sound wave at a specified rate. The more chunks that the computers store every second, gives a more accurate picture of the sound wave.

(USE VISUAL EXAMPLE OF FRAME RATE TO DEMONSTRATE THIS CONCEPT).

Manipulating the Information
The digital information held about sounds can be processed and transformed in ways that analogue signals cannot. This has allowed composers to do much more complex sound transformations and to work with sounds in an almost unlimited fashion.

One key advantage in having sound information stored digitally is that it can be copied, transferred, duplicated and rewritten without any loss in quality.